Sam's Pirate Birthday

For Sam's 5th birthday, he wanted a pirate theme. I decided to document the cake experience with pictures.  I must have taken 100 pictures.  I'll only post a few here.  All of my cakes are made from "scratch," so this is what it looks like to start.



Midway through the project, I started to have bits of cake, filling and frosting all over the kitchen..

I had planned to also make deck railings for the pirate ship but ran short on time.  Sam loved the cake anyway.  I used the basketweave tip to frost "planks" all around the ship and deck.  This is the first cake that I have made that wasn't entirely edible.  The sails and flags are paper and the chocolate coins and "treasures" are wrapped in foil.  We later learned that the coins were actually bubblegum.  The finished product:

I hope to make another pirate ship soon.  I have a bunch of ideas to make it better and entirely edible.